This Article is From Mar 11, 2012

Regional Cancer Centre to hold awareness camps

Puducherry: The Regional Cancer Centre (RCC)of the centrally funded premier medical institution JIPMERplanned to hold camps in villages to create awareness onvarious methods for early detection of cancer, an officialsaid.

The role of rural and semi-urban camps became important as'potential patients could be identified and ailments detected'at the early stage, RCC Head of the Department of RadiotherapyDr K S Reddy told reporters on the sidelines of a one-dayContinuing Medical Education (CME) programme on 'EpithelialOvarian malignancies' here.

He said already two such camps were held in Karaikal. RCCwould be glad if voluntary organisations and local leaders ofpublic opinion came forward and acted as facilitators with thethe cancer centre to hold the camps.

The role of camps assume significance as patientsdeveloping symptoms of cancer would not feel it in the initialstages and sought medical help only in almost advanced stages,he said.

JIPMER was getting every year around 3,500 new cancercases referred to it from various health providers in andoutside Puducherry and from neighbouring states.

Dr Reddy said that there was also necessity for eachand every health institution to provide cancer registries.Presently only five metropolitan cities in the country had theregistries. He also felt that cancer be made a 'notifiabledisease'.

Earlier, acting director of JIPMER Dr Ananthanarayananinaugurated the CME programme and stressed on sustainedendeavours to generate awareness among the people so that theoccurrence of the disease could be nipped in the bud.
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